What is Crowdfunding

It's a smart, popular and proven way to raise money online from your network of family-members, friends and even like-minded people you don't even know yet – "the crowd" – to launch or grow your business. In return, you offer them awesome "rewards", without giving away equity in your company. Rewards could include your product or service, a thank-you postcard, a personalised t-shirt, a credit in your book or film or product manual, a memorable experience with you and your team...be creative!

create your campaign
support a campaign

Why Crowdfunding ?

The concept of crowdfunding taps into several big social trends:

The rise in self-employment

The huge growth in social media, which means it's easy to create, spread, find and share information

The empowerment of women.

The democratisation of power away from big businesses and the traditional banking and venture capital systems and towards small

And with a crowdfunding campaign you'll be able to:

Raise funds without giving away equity in your business

Build a community of enthusiastic fans

Test the market viability and get valuable feedback about your product or service before you invest too much time and money into your idea

Leverage the power of social media and word-of-mouth marketingand towards small businesses and their potential supporters

Why Choose Next Chapter?

Yes, there are lots of other crowdfunding platforms out there. Here's why we think it's a good idea (for you, us and everyone) for you to create or support a campaign on Next Chapter:

  • We're based in Hong Kong, so we're able to work closely with you on your campaign.
  • Championing women-owned and women-led enterprises makes good business sense, and it's good for society!
  • We offer a number of services surrounded our platform to provide you online and offline support and mentoring to increase your campaign's chances of success.
  • We believe women want to support businesses owned and led by other women, and we want to create an online space where they can do that.
  • We're building a community of generous, like-minded people who share their experiences and lessons, and celebrate each other's successes.
  • Women understand what women want and need, so they're more likely to come up with practical, user-friendly solutions. After all, necessity is the mother of invention!
  • We host live educational events about crowdfunding and female entrepreneurship.
  • Women's start-ups have less access to capital, and often don't achieve the same level of long-term success as start-ups by men, even though women start the same number of businesses as men. So we want to change that by increasing women's access to funding and empowering them to take charge of their financial destiny

Why Crowdfund Female Entrepreneurs?

lots of reasons

Starting more businesses. These days, more and more women – especially mums – are starting more and more businesses.

Capital-efficient.  Women-run businesses are more capital-efficient than those run by men.

Higher success rates. Venture-backed companies with female executives have higher success rates.

Harnessing talent. "Many analysts now agree that, over the next decade, the impact of women on the global economy as producers, entrepreneurs, as academic, political and cultural leaders, employees and consumers, will be at least as significant as the impact of China. More importantly, there is a cost of doing nothing. The cost of not harnessing the energy of women in the economy is estimated at more than $9trn." (That's US dollars.)
~ Barbara Woodward, British Ambassador to China, at the Alibaba Global Conference on Women and Entrepreneurship in Hangzhou, China, May 20, 2015.

Financial empowerment. The financial empowerment of women and the rise of the entrepreneurial economy are "two defining trends of our time".
~ Sarah Fink, Head of Research at the Centre for Entrepreneurs in the UK.

Ripple effect.  When a woman-owned business is successful, it doesn't only create income for her – it also supports the economic and social development of her family and her whole community. 

Decision-makers.  Women make most of the decisions about a family's purchases of food, clothing, healthcare, education, housing, household appliances, travel, entertainment, the family car... So women are ideally placed to start businesses that appeal to women and their buying needs.